The death of the coupon

Phoning in the discounts

In a few months, shoppers will also be able load discounts to their loyalty cards via cell phone. Kroger has signed a pact with mobile marketer Cellfire to transfer coupons from manufacturers such as General Mills, P&G, Kimberly-Clark, Clorox and Del Monte to an application downloaded to cell phones.

There are no text messages or mobile spam involved. Customers will just download a coupon application to their cell phone and register their grocery-store card. Then, when they want to add coupons, they'll scroll down and click "OK" to select them. The coupons will be credited to their accounts immediately, says Cellfire CEO Brent Dusing.

Shoppers can even retrieve the coupons as they are walking down the grocery aisles.

"You are only in front of your computer a few hours a day. This allows consumers to save money when they are on the go," Dusing says.

Cellfire's application works with all mobile carriers, and the company is working to add more retailers and discounts to the service in the months ahead.

What's in it for shoppers?

Like it or not, you'll be confronting electronic coupons soon. Here's why:

• Convenience is the biggest draw, analysts say. Rather than clipping and sorting and trying to keep track of a messy wad of coupons, shoppers can have the discounts waiting at a register before they leave home.

• There's no embarrassment. Coupons allow people who don't like to be seen as cheapskates to get the discounts in stealth mode.

• At least in the current experimental mode, some of these coupons have larger face values.

• Conceivably, Nelson said, you could triple-dip and use paper coupons -- those printed off the Web and those you load to the card. Instead of buying three Sunday papers to get deals on three of the same products, you could print one off the Web (you can find click-and-print coupons on sites such as CoolSavings, SmartSource and RedPlum), load one to your card and use your Sunday coupons.

However, these electronic coupons aren't without a few drawbacks:

• Most have a shorter expiration period than paper coupons.

• There's no room for an error in your favor. Because they are linked to UPC codes on products, there isn't the same fudge factor at the checkout. If you didn't buy the exact same size or variety that the coupon stipulates, you won't get the discount.

"We all know the payoff is there" from coupons, Shortcuts' Baker said. But, she said, "It's not as easy as it could be."

Published April 15, 2008

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